"Soap and education are not as sudden as massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run".
When I first read these words of Mark Twain, when I was young, I laughed at the apparent nonsense of such an idea, as well as the juxtaposition of something as tangible as soap with something as abstract as education.
Over my adult life, I have come to believe that Twain uttered something very profound.
'Soap' symbolises hygiene and cleanliness, and 'education' knowledge and conscious thought.
So what's wrong with  being clean and knowledgeable?  On the surface, nothing, but soap and education have come to dominate and near destroy many of our human qualities over millennia.
Of course we are all glad that we live in a generally cleaner society than in the past.  Unfortunately, it has made just about everyone neurotically concerned about germs and disorder.
Education is more complicated.  Since the message of my blog is that school is anti-educational and that a real education springs from curiosity and the willingness to live and learn from life's experiences, I should baulk at Twain's cynicism.  But I think he's referring to something deeper than knowledge or thought.  He is referring to the conscious mind and its awareness, as opposed to the subconscious, the real driver of our lives.  Our society over-values knowledge and awareness to a level where the cerebral overtakes our lives.
I know this is a huge issue and one open to debate.  I welcome other interpretations.
I rarely quote the Bible these days, but there is a great truth in the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter I, Verse 18:
"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth  knowledge increaseth sorrow".